Adventure World has been announced for Facebook by Zynga, as an all-new Facebook game that is more feature-rich than anything else they’ve ever developed. And it will go live on Facebook in the coming months.
The tagline for the game is “Team Up, Explore Lost Worlds, and Unearth Adventures” (in addition to “Grab Life By the Boulders”) in what is essentially an Action RPG.
The engine for this game was developed by scratch via a Flash-based game engine by Zynga Boston, formally Conduit Labs. Adventure World marks Zynga’s largest, most complex, most feature-rich and most graphically impressive game to date.
Adventure World features over 20,000 different objects(!) and is set in the “Golden Age of Exploration”. In this game, players are tasked with unlocking new areas via exploration and discovery, solving puzzles and completing over 200 different quests.
It is a drastic shift for the company that is like a mix between Super Mario Bros, Indiana Jones and Farmville, although completely separate from the “Ville” and “War” games the company has mostly done in the past.
The game features over 30 different environments for players to explore, and they are set within five different worlds; Deep Jungle, Mountain, Cavern, Volcano and El Dorado. All of these stages take place in a world known as “Mezo-America”.
Here is the debut trailer for Adventure World.
The game is an action title where you navigate your customizable polygonal 3D avatar through 2D environments. These dynamic environments feature all manner of traps (spikes, falling boulders, etc.), enemies in the form of nasty creatures to take out, and puzzles to solve. Unlocking clues will help you to proceed in your adventure towards the secret city of El Dorado, the City of Gold. Throughout the stages you can find and collect Gold Coins, that can be used to buy items, tools, gadgets and new equipment/clothing. Items include weapons like Machetes, Pickaxes, Whips, Dynamite and Grappling Hooks, which will allow you to better defeat enemies and unlock new areas to explore for the land you’re in.
The size of the game promises to be over 40 times that of previous Zynga titles, and features over 1,000 distinct art assets! And there is almost endless amounts of character customization; so all the millions of players can have unique avatars. They promise that over 10,000 different avatar combinations will be available at launch. More will no doubt be added in the future.
Players start the game off at a Base Camp in Central America, where they join up with the Adventure Society who are searching for the secret and lost city of El Dorado. From there, players enter the first Jungle Environment. It is here that they will battle snakes, disarm booby traps, and solve ancient puzzles. Eventually you will reach the foggy mountain cliffs where you’ll run in to Rams, along with poisonous spiders which you must avoid or defeat. Runaway mine-carts, rickety bridges, deep Caverns and an active Volcano must be successfully conquered before players will discover the secret of El Dorado. Sounds awesome!
Zynga says that Adventure World is the first of more deeper gameplay experiences that will focus on puzzle-based, action adventure gameplay. Social-wise, players will be able to invite up to twelve of their Facebook friends for cooperative adventuring in the same area! You can then help to proceed in your game using your friends tools and abilities, as well as solve the puzzles together, explore ever-diverse lands, and unlock new puzzles to solve.
Adventure World is the first time Zynga has offered a game with multi-dimensional depth (an isometric perspective essentially) and that features polygonal 3D avatars on a deep background (rendered in 2D), for a 3D style feel. The game is also very expensive, so it will be an interesting and new experiment for Zynga and Facebook. The game engine also allows the developers to easily create and add new environments, level maps and puzzles to solve; so the game will be constantly expanded and updated with new stuff to do. No doubt, new Items, Weapons, Equipment and Clothing will also be on tap in the future. Expect this game to become huge within a year or so of launch.
If Adventure World succeeds like Zynga is hoping, expect many more deeper Facebook titles to come. And expect your mom to be asking you to help her brave the harrowing volcano so she can reach that out-of-reach treasure chest. You know it’s coming.
After a year of working on Adventure World though, Zynga has more to lose with this game than any game before it. As they have heavily invested time and money into this title, going so far as to create a brand new engine from scratch to run it. It also features deeper gamplay elements more in line with traditional videogames than the social networking games most people are used to. It’s a gamble, but hopefully the game’s fun look, charming avatars, complex levels, puzzle-based gameplay and fun action will draw people in.
Personally, I think the game looks really fun. I’m pretty positive it’ll be a success. So far I have not touched a Facebook game or App with a ten-foot pole, but this might be the first one that gets me playing. And that’s saying something!
What do you think of Adventure World?
